Hundreds of customers remain without power across SW Virginia
(WDBJ) - UPDATE: Danville Utilities’ says it will be unable to restore service to all customers Saturday night.
One of the areas not yet restored is the Hunting Hills Road and Golf Club Road areas. Crews tried to complete the repair of poles damaged from a fallen tree on Route 41, but weren’t able to finish.
The company says there will be other small clusters of outages it will be unable to fix but hopes to restore all power Sunday.
UPDATE: A total of fifteen utility poles were broken within Danville Utilities’ territory.
Another fifteen trees fell in street rights of way. Calvary Street, Guerrant Street and Woodberry Drive are all closed due to trees entangled with power lines.
There are eight major power lines that are back in service out of the 11 that were offline Friday night.
EARLIER: Thousands of AEP customers across SW Virginia are without power as of Saturday morning.
According to the AEP Outage Map, over 25,000 customers are without power. At one point more than 29,000 customers were without power.
”Trees, trees, they are just down everywhere. That’s the main cause of all the outages,” said AEP Mechanic Aid Darryl Jackson.
AEP says most outages are in the Virginia service territory in areas east of I-77. Counties most affected include Patrick (3,700 customers), Carroll (3,494), Bedford (2,659), Henry (2,248) and Botetourt (2,132).
“Like I said we have to look out for each other while we are here because we don’t want nobody to get hurt,” added Jackson. “So, just be patient we’re going to get it back on.”
The company says it’s implementing a plan to move crews from unaffected areas into areas where damage and outages occurred. Damage assessors and line workers from West Virginia are traveling to assist local crews with service restoration. Restoration estimates will be made available when the extent of damage is more completely assessed.
Over 5,500 customers are without power in Danville, according to Danville Utilities.
In Rockbridge County, over 480 customers are without power, according to BARC Electric Cooperative.
Check outage maps for updates.
Copyright 2022 WDBJ. All rights reserved.